from today’s USA Today:
Before her visit to China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removed the issue of human rights from the table, saying it could “interfere” with talks on the global economic crisis, climate change and security.
She missed a critical point. Human rights aren’t a side dish on a crowded buffet. Human rights support and frame each of these other important issues. To overlook them is to court failure on the themes she highlights.
How, for instance, does Secretary Clinton plan to secure China’s support for economic reform? Along with the government, she needs people like Bao Tong, once a top Communist Party official who argues that economic health starts with political reform. For that, he spent seven years in prison and lives under virtual house arrest in Beijing.
On climate change and the devastation wrought by poorly regulated Chinese industry, there is no better informed person than Hu Jia. But Hu, one of China’s leading dissidents, who was awarded the prestigious Sakharov Prize last year by the European Parliament, is serving a three-and-a-half year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power,” in part for environmental activism.
Human rights are a beacon to millions. To briskly dismiss them betrays the immense sacrifice so many make for the freedoms Americans can take for granted. If Secretary Clinton misses this point, the Chinese government does not. During her visit, more than a dozen dissidents were questioned, followed or detained.
We cannot reform China from the outside. People like Bao Tong and Hu Jia and hundreds of thousands more need freedom and outside support to make change from within. Human rights protect a country’s brilliant thinkers. Human rights foster debate and the new ideas that improve lives.
Human rights are not a luxury; they are fundamental to economic health, air and water purity, and security. Clinton should correct this blunder. By supporting rights leaders, funding rights work and keeping rights at the center of the agenda, the United States could reassume its role as a leader for freedoms in China and the rest of the world.